Tuesday, July 3, 2007

Did Iron John Do Plumbing?

I love my husband for many reasons, but chief among those reasons is this: he's a manly man.

He's the kind of guy who you know could totally protect you in the wilderness, or in the aftermath of a nuclear attack (which you survived because he's the type of guy who could build a bomb shelter, by hand, if there were any real threat of nuclear attack, which there's not, so stop giving me nightmares already. I lost enough sleep in the eighties, thank you very much.) He can guide rafts through white-water rapids, he can fight forest fires, he can building a cabin, he drinks scotch and beer and mixes obscure cocktails involving onions and tabasco. He drives an old Saab that he loves because it has rocket engineering. He knows how to tie complicated knots, the kind that you need to know how to tie on boats, and dreams of sailing around the world on a tall ship. He gets his hair cut by a Portuguese barber, the kind with a really sharp razor and an attitude. He likes attitude, but only in old men from old countries, and not from disaffected youth, who he thinks should just pull up their saggy pants already.

There's not the faintest whiff of metrosexual about him (okay, maybe a wee poof around the designer eyeglass frames), even though he works in television, which should give him a free pass to be as fussy and glossy as he wants to be. But he doesn't want to be, not at all, and I love that about him.

What I'm not loving so much, right this minute - though I hasten to add that this unlove is not directed at him - is the fact that my manly man decided to rip apart our bathroom this weekend and not put it back together again. Because, you know, he didn't sign up for the plumbing and now the weekend's over and hey! Look! Over there! Isn't that a commercial that needs shooting? Exit Her Bad Father, stage right, leaving his tools and pipes and miscellaneous man-crap in a manly death-trap behind him.

Now we have this, where my bathtub is supposed to be:

And instead of a toilet:

Which means that our ablutions look something like this:

Which is - however convenient for photo opps - annoying in the extreme.

To be fair, he has called a contractor, who will, sometime this week, restore our bathroom and liberate us from the buckets.

In the meantime, I am reserving the right to love the man and disdain, for the moment, the manliness. Because you just know that if he were a metrosexual, and understood the joy of bath products (and, let's face it, baths in general. Real men prefer showers, but will make do with buckets) this never would have happened.

Okay, I've got One Of Those, too... and by that, I mean the burly-man husband who is "easily distracted", shall we say.

And I love him, which is Why I Stay.

But, after fifteen years of marriage, I have officially christened him a "Handi-maniac", and will not let him NEAR tools of any sort. That, plus I've also built an emergency fund into our budget, to cover any rescuing we require after he has tried to "fix" something... just in case.

Not in possession of a manly-man (shhhhh, don't tell him I revealed the big secret!!), I can only giggle...because in my house, I'm the one who decides to remove bathtubs, tear out walls and otherwise fuck with the comfort of my family!! :) But, I can also program the DVD player and fix the air-conditioner. I am loved, albeit intermittently. heh.

I don't know. Right now I'm thanking g*d for my metrosexual who I could easily outlast in the shower-free department (he wouldn't stand for that mess for more than a day). Luckily, he's Italian, so he also has a few skillz.

So, so funny. I am in possession of a metrosexual myself. Although I do adore him (and can now see how the manly man can create problems), I could occasionally use a manly man for fixing of the plumbing, etc. Wanna trade for a few days so I can get some shit done around here?

I love the word abulation, and my heart did a little cartwheel when I read this post. We're renters so I've never experienced renos, but we're planning on buying in our new city so your hell might become my reality. I just don't know yet where my husband is on the burly/metrosexual spectrum. He's a theatre artist so he can put on makeup but can also make a set. Should be interesting...

I have a computer geek/boy scout hybrid with ADHD...which means, he'll rip out the bathroom, try to wire a DVD player with internet into it, then get distracted by the cat or something shiny, and forget what he was doing...

Like you, I am married to a manly man (who, however, dances to Abba) who would not understand that frustration. Case in point our half-painted house.We bought a "fixer-upper" which really needs a whole lot more fixing. I love him. Thank God. But there are days!!!!

When I read posts such as this, I thank my lucky stars that we rent and not own our apartment and that my husband is neither handy nor delusional. This, I believe, is chief among the reasons we are not destined to own our home. Who will we call when the toilet backs up?

WTF? We must be married to the same guy. Only mine refuses to call a contractor because he can do it "himself." Ha! I had a claw foot bathtub residing in my living room for SIX MONTHS! Only when I threatened to turn it into a planter did it magically make its way into the bathroom.

Hope you don't have to, you know, pee in the bucket. I've been contemplating that in my office lately and I don't relish the idea.

this happens in our house regularly...usually with me saying, midstream, "uh, honey, did you plan out what you were going to do because I'm worried that you aren't...wait, why are you GLARING at me? I'm just worried because...LAST time you did this you...Fine! DO WHAT YOU WANT!"

Oh, girl, I feel your pain. Had a DMZ in our bathroom for months when I was pregnant. Good thing a new Harry potter book came out, because he tiled while I read it to him and the stupid thing got finished.

Since my husband would be useless at building a bomb shelter or foraging food, you did get the better end of the deal!

My husband also works in television, also can fix just about anything, and will not touch plumbing. Electric? Fine. Yard work? No problem. Plumbing? He'll curl up in a fetal position (in his manly jeans and t-shirt, of course) and rock.

Our upstairs bathroom looks the same. My manly man took a sledgehammer to it a few months ago and it hasn't changed since then. Fortunately, we have another one to use or I'd be in there connecting a toilet myself.